I do believe they would still be standing if they had lower expectations for Rock Band 4, coming back after 7 years without major rhythm games outside of Project Diva was a tough challenge, and it didn't prove successful for both Rock Band and Guitar Hero. The genre is not dead, just smaller. They sold well for Rock Band 3 because the game arrived during the 2007-2010 golden age of rhythm games. As to why music games don't really interest people outside of Just Dance anymore is still over me...

I do believe they would still be standing if they had lower expectations for Rock Band 4, coming back after 7 years without major rhythm games outside of Project Diva was a tough challenge, and it didn't prove successful for both Rock Band and Guitar Hero. The genre is not dead, just smaller. They sold well for Rock Band 3 because the game arrived during the 2007-2010 golden age of rhythm games. As to why music games don't really interest people outside of Just Dance anymore is still over me...

It was a huge fad, but now people have seen it done before. Rock Band 4 and GH Live brought nothing notable to the table (both cut features rather than include new ones) and thus mass appeal was lost. Imagine if Nintendo tried to copy the Wii's motion control gimmick in 2017 for the Switch and did absolutely nothing else with it other than that, nobody's going to care if you don't innovate.

It was a huge fad, but now people have seen it done before. Rock Band 4 and GH Live brought nothing notable to the table (both cut features rather than include new ones) and thus mass appeal was lost. Imagine if Nintendo tried to copy the Wii's motion control gimmick in 2017 for the Switch and did absolutely nothing else with it other than that, nobody's going to care if you don't innovate.

Plus out of the two, Rock Band was the one who saved the most stuff out of the sinking ship, the only notable problem is the lack of keys as an instrument, despite that it's there as DLC, I think they would have done better if they did like GTA V: A next-gen port of Rock Band 3, then keep on with DLC, and Madcatz could have probably just sold well among those who already played and those who are nw to it, I introduced about 20+ people to Rock Band 3, a few of them being pianists, and they loved the concept of being able to play for real on a game, especially since they have me as a song request tool!

The second problem is that Harmonix is way too ambitious. Rock Band VR only supports Oculus Rift, so it only appeals to a few select people, the Oculus is really expensive for what it does, and buying it with the game for 600+€ just to feel "a bit more into the game" and only with guitar is what convinced me that it's not going to do well.

The third thing, not a problem but an opinion, is that the campaign for the PC port would have helped, a little or a lot, but it would have. There are a lot of people who only play Phase Shift (And probably a half with the keyboard) for a reason or another, and some of them would have probably bought it if it came out on PC, allowing a lot of stuff. The problem on this one, is that Harmonix should have used a more "trustworthy" platform with a bigger audience, like Kickstarter, I never heard of Fig before the announcement.

So, sometimes a company is out of money and banks won't loan any more money until they see some business plan for the future. Sometimes a company would then partner with other companies to bring to market new products in order to produce a business plan banks like. Sometimes a company would also make bold projections and estimates about sales so that banks are more likely to loan the money needed when they know that actually the products won't sell anywhere near as much.. Sometimes the partners are only happy to see those projections because they don't produce the products in the first place, they only produce the software. Sometimes when all of this happens, a company does not sell enough products and ends up filing for bankruptcy.

Hey, I'm not saying this is exactly what happened with Mad Catz according to some reports about financial issues in 2015 and 2016, I'm just saying that sometimes a company does this...

I am curious though; I know most of us know Mad Catz for producing Rock Band instruments but believe it or not the company's been making products long before Rock Band existed. I somehow doubt that RB was the reason Mad Catz lost so much (especially with the ever-popular RAT mouse line) but I could be wrong.

It's definitely a shame. Mad Catz had a rough reputation early on in their lifespan as a peripheral hardware company, but they really started getting their shit together during the 360/PS3 gen, especially with Rock Band and their arcade stick peripherals. I've still got my Street Fighter x Tekken fightstick in perfect condition, that thing is built like a tank.

That reminded me that I really need to pick up one of those, and ASAP. I'm getting an e-kit soon and I feel like the prices on those things are only going to go up with Mad Catz going down. Is ebay my best bet?

Yeah, they haven't gotten ridiculous yet, because there's still some new-old-stock to clear out. But I'd say get now while the gettin's good! I should buy a couple more myself, and maybe for all three platforms.